The picture in your link isn’t the marquee, just one of the two box offices. The big marquee stretches across the top of that end of the mall and can be seen from anywhere in the amusement park. All neon lines and stars and the (now) AMC logo. True it still doesn’t list movies now showing.

Small trivia item about the marquee…The two stars that blink in the middle were used to line up one of the hanging Lego spaceships below, as if the spaceship is shooting the stars.

Rumor had it the first few years it was open it was the most profitable site GCC had nationwide, and managers made more money on concessions commission alone than their previous base pay running other sites in town.

No idea how it stacks up now. I have to imagine the lack of stadium seating hurts it. It’s been years since I saw them running either of the hallway satelite concession stands.

It’s more than a rumor that it was the most profitable in General Cinema. It is fact. They had the largest conc sales but second in attendence behind only Ford City 14 in Chicago. The managers did make good money off conc. sales but not asst. managers. The only theatre in the area that came close in sales was Har Mar which is also where the first manager of Mall of America came from.

The managers lost the commission when General Cinema switched the bonus program to one like they had at AMC after they brought in a new vp that came from AMC IN 1995 and in ‘96 changed the bonus program. The new one had a goal that had to be made before a bonus was paid out and in the case of MOA the managers could have made more at some of the other theaters because the goals were set so high they could reach them and the theater had never done that much in its histroy.

The Mall Of America 14 might not even be in the top 25 theaters anymore with the addition of theaters built by General Cinema such as Northbrook 14, Randhurst16, and Yorktown 18 in Chicago, Framingham14 in Boston, Mayfair Mall 18 in Milwaukee, Franklin Mill 14, Phil. and Cliffton Commons 16 in New Jersey to name a few.

It probably stayed near the top until AMC took over General Cinema but with all the 20 and 30 plexes AMC has and the addition of Southdale 16, Arbor Lakes 16, and Eden Praire 18. They have now added Roseville 14 which could also bump them down.

I saw The Ex here on May 24th, 2007. Good presentation, comfy, well-worn seats, air conditioning blaring full blast. And since it was a Thursday afternoon showing a film which was ending later that night, about five people were there. Not bad of a film though. Zach Braff was weak but Jason Bateman was great as the villain.

Interesting note in the StarTribune today regarding AMC selling the space to the mall itself:

“Theaters Mall of America, the former AMC property being refurbished by the mall owners, is following suit. The multiplex is adding two 3-D digital projection systems, larger and plusher seats, food and full bar service, and real butter on its popcorn.

There will even be a 21-and-older VIP auditorium, with uniformed servers taking food and drink orders and delivering them on plastic trays half an hour before the feature begins. The theater will add a $2 ticket surcharge for that 170-seat hall. The mall will relaunch the facility with a grand reopening party on Friday."

Phase 2 is set to include “state of the art theaters” – – no word which exhibitor they are courting (or if the mall’s developers Triple Five will operate any new cinemas – – Tripple Five is also involved in the new (well very very behind schedule) American Dream complex.)

Cineplex runs a Scotibank location at Triple Fives' other mega mall West Edmonton – but Ellis Jacobs has stated Cineplex has no desire to return to the US even though they are interested in expanding to other english-speaking territories).

As of December 2012, Theaters at MOA is now fully digital, with all 14 screens running Christie Projectors. One theater is setup with D-Box motion seating, one is a VIP theater (21+, in-seat service including beer and wine), and one theater is capable of running 35mm features in addition to digital prints. 6 of the theaters are equipped with RealD 3d systems (including the D-Box and VIP theater), and all theaters run 5.1 digital Dolby sound.

At this point, any new theater in “Phase II” of the mall is likely at least 2-3 years away. Currently, the Theaters at MOA is consistently the highest grossing non-IMAX-capable theater in the Twin Cities region, and the mall is spending considerable effort and expense integrating the theaters into the same department as the amusement park, so it seems unlikely that they would give up control.

Also unclear is if the old theater would close down entirely, or if they would try and operate two theaters. The possibility certainly exists that this “new theater” would be a handful of IMAX-capable screens to use for new releases and screenings, and would simply be an extension of the existing theater.